Fan Mail from Variety!

Okay, so it's not so much fan mail as just a response to an e-mail I sent, 
but it's pleasant to get something other than spam-mail in my Peter Terp account.

Dave McNary of Variety.com is a nice enough guy to respond to personal e-mails. 

His e-mail:

Thanks for taking the time to write.  

My e-mail:

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Terp [mailto:peterterp@msn.com] 
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 6:55 PM
To: McNary, Dave (RBI-US)
Subject: World not into 'Nativity'

Dear Mr. McNary,

I just read your brief piece on "The Nativity" for Variety magazine. You
write that: "New Line sold off the foreign territories to an array of
distribs -- none of whom are seeing anything but dreary results, even from
heavily Catholic markets."

This statement sounds as if it is surprising that Catholic audiences are not
responding well to this film. Later you quote a distributor as saying: "My
guess is that 'Nativity' may have felt too familiar, kind of like a movie of
the week." While this conjecture certainly might have some truth to it, I
wonder if a better clue might be found in some of the responses from
Catholic reviewers.

As a practicing Catholic, I was very interested in this film until I read an
article by a Catholic film critic that said the film was excellent except
for its portrayal of Mary. It seems that many Catholics have been
disappointed not only with the performance of the actress, but also the
portrayal of the character by the script.

Because Roman Catholics typically have strong Marian devotions, any film
that portrays Mary as anything less than the Immaculate Conception could be
a significant turn off to a Catholic audience.

Thanks for your time.

Peter Terp

Comments

[Al T]

"Thanks for taking the time to write."

I think this should be your new default response to student e-mails.

[Aurelius]

I think it's interesting (maybe flattering) that people jump to the conclusion that a movie about Jesus must be a Catholic movie. I remember reading the discussion board on imdb.com before the movie came out, and people who had never seen the movie were already criticizing it for exalting Mary (!).